(April 23, 2011 at 1:51 pm)MrJatt Wrote: 1. I think belief in God is properly basic.
2. The likelihood of my cognitive structure structure retaining true beliefs is greater than on theism, than given atheism).

now i do not have the knowledge to refute these except the 5th one, so i need some help to understand and perhaps refute this.

Hi there, MrJatt. If you are looking for more information about 1 and 2, you will want to read up on Alvin Plantinga, who argues for these main points (and others) in a multi-volume work on epistemology. The first is an argument that theism can be rational without knowledge of a good argument for theism; the second is normally called the "Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism" (EAAN) which argues that the conjunction of evolution and naturalism is self-defeating. I don't know how familiar you are with philosophy and these arguments in particular, but if you've not come across Plantinga before there are some good interviews of him at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7377jU2a8Y and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yNg4MJgTFw where he explains his views on the two arguments. If your friend is a philosopher, you will want to make sure that you understand the strongest form of his arguments before you attempt a refutation.

Send him this cartoon:

(April 23, 2011 at 7:11 pm)Eleazar Wrote:

(April 23, 2011 at 1:51 pm)MrJatt Wrote: 1. I think belief in God is properly basic.
2. The likelihood of my cognitive structure structure retaining true beliefs is greater than on theism, than given atheism).

now i do not have the knowledge to refute these except the 5th one, so i need some help to understand and perhaps refute this.

Hi there, MrJatt. If you are looking for more information about 1 and 2, you will want to read up on Alvin Plantinga, who argues for these main points (and others) in a multi-volume work on epistemology. The first is an argument that theism can be rational without knowledge of a good argument for theism; the second is normally called the "Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism" (EAAN) which argues that the conjunction of evolution and naturalism is self-defeating. I don't know how familiar you are with philosophy and these arguments in particular, but if you've not come across Plantinga before there are some good interviews of him at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7377jU2a8Y and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yNg4MJgTFw where he explains his views on the two arguments. If your friend is a philosopher, you will want to make sure that you understand the strongest form of his arguments before you attempt a refutation.

Thank you for the links, i understand them now yet i don't see how anyone could believe these to be true.

Quote:And then I again said does he have any empirical evidence to support any of his arguments because so far nothing has been presented.

That's all you need to say.

I don't always agree with Chris Hitchens,but I did when he said this;

Quote:That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence

From the book of Badger chapter XIV

14:1 And yea verily did the wise badger listen to the babble of the foolish.

14:2 And mightly did he labour, applying reason against their lies.

14:3 Yet all was in vain, for the more he reasoned the louder and more foolish was their ranting.

14:4 So it came to pass, that tiring of their incessant noise.

14:5 Lo! he did tell them to Fuck off.

14:6 And it was good.

Here endth the reading

Yes, it was plagerized from P.Z Meyer.

Quote:King Arthur: Consult the Book of Armaments.

Brother Maynard: Armaments, chapter two, verses nine through twenty-one.

Cleric: [reading] And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, "O Lord, bless this thy hand grenade, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the Lord did grin. And the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths, and carp and anchovies, and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit-bats and large chu...

Brother Maynard: Skip a bit, Brother...

Cleric: And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.

(April 23, 2011 at 3:58 pm)MrJatt Wrote:

(April 23, 2011 at 3:09 pm)Minimalist Wrote: 4. There is no evidence for a 'historical' jesus, at all....and the "resurrection stories" are ripped straight from pagan mythology.

You're allowing him to skip the step of showing that there is any evidence for 'god' period.

He says practically all scholars agree with this,

"1.The Empty Tomb.
2. The disciples having appearances of Jesus.
3. The origin of the belief in Jesus resurrection."

i asked for sources and waiting for a response

Also are you guys saying that i should disregard any arguments from philosophy? thats what point number 1,2 seems to be.

About the resurrection thing, you have to know the Gospels were written down between 40-70 years after Jesus died, very likely by writers who weren't eye witnesses. Besides eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable when it comes to testimony.

Paul in 1 Corinthians does not mention the empty tomb, although he does mention that 20 years after Jesus died his followers believed he rose from the dead. There is quite a natural explanation for belief Jesus followers had in his resurrection, namely bereavement hallucinations. Also read up on the Our Lady of Fátima event in Portugal during the early 20th century, how such hallucinations can happen on a huge scale.

I wrote a post which started a thread here
http://atheistforums.org/thread-6022.html#pid117719

Quote:arguments from philosophy?

Mental masturbation.

He'll end up flipping burgers at McDonalds with a degree in that.

(April 24, 2011 at 12:58 am)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:arguments from philosophy?

Mental masturbation.

He'll end up flipping burgers at McDonalds with a degree in that.

Nah hes a math major too, and now he is going into theoretical physics. I don't know why hes a Christian.


Also he is says this
~~~~>"The Gospels were either written by a disciple of Christ, or by someone who knew the disciples well or a guy who went around and did research on the life of Christ. There are no writings from the time of Christ. And that's not really problematic. We can still use our historical methods of figuring out things.

With that said, the writing of St. Paul (which I mentioned to) are only 5 years after Jesus was crucified"

~~~~>"Jesus was actually not very controversial. The fact that we know anything about him is due to him commanding his disciples to go through out the world. Also, the ancient world was really big on oral traditions, so it's not likely that anything would be written down for a while, but rather passed by word of mouth "

(April 23, 2011 at 1:51 pm)MrJatt Wrote: 1. I think belief in God is properly basic.
2. The likelihood of my cognitive structure structure retaining true beliefs is greater than on theism, than given atheism).

Tell him to put down the Plantinga! - "Properly basic belief" is the same as saying "I can present no epistemic justification for my beliefs so I will instead argue that what I already believe, and every other foundational belief, is necessarily basic and cannot be supported by argument and/or evidence"

That's false, an Epistemology is a "basic" belief that offers all of the supposed "foundations" of a belief in "theism" or "Naturalism" or any other world view AND is completely open to refutation - We can have a basic belief that an epistemology is true and compile a worldview from that point onwards by examining other propositions with these epistemic standards while at the same time having a "basic" belief that is entirely open to refutation. No Christian can present a sound and valid epistemology that permits belief in a God, that is precisely why they resort to this "properly basic" bullshit.

As for 2.... Even if that is true, which I guess it is, the contrary is also an argument for Naturalism, that the inherent flaws, cognitive biases, memory loss and confusion, false beliefs etc are more likely Given naturalism. If you want to say that the universe is more likely given theism you must account for every aspect of the universe and not just stop at the first one that may be more likely given theism.

Quote:And for Christian theism in particularly:
3. Argument that God is not a unitarian God.
4. The Resurrection as the best explanation of certain facts about the historical Jesus.
5. Religious experience.

That simply does not qualify as an argument, also, 4 presupposes that Jesus is in fact a historical figure, I am undecided about that personally, I tend to believe he was, but that aside one simply cannot assert his historical existence in the premises.

Also, saying that "The biblical narrative is best explained by the resurrection" is just like saying "The yellow brick road is best explained by the city of Oz".

Religious experience is the single worst argument anybody can use, these "revelations" have lead to so many completely contradictory conclusions that you simply cannot accept them as an argument for anything.

Quote:Also Hello! this is my first post

Welcome